Every four years, U.S. media spend untold time and energy covering the presidential campaign. And every election cycle there are certain media themes that keep coming back. Extra! has compiled a guide to the most popular recurring tropes, as well as some new additions to keep an eye on in 2012. Candidate Caricatures In 2008, journalists gave us McCain the maverick vs. Obama the snob (Extra!, 5–6/08, 7–8/08): easily digestible caricatures that the candidates’ every action could be forced into. It didn’t matter that McCain toed the party line more than your average Republican, or that Obama’s middle-class, community activist [...]
Search Results for: Christopher Ott
Dec
16
2010
What We Learn From WikiLeaks
Media paint flattering picture of U.S. diplomacy
In U.S. elite media, the main revelation of the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables is that the U.S. government conducts its foreign policy in a largely admirable fashion. Fareed Zakaria, Time (12/2/10): The WikiLeaks documents, by contrast [to the Pentagon Papers], show Washington pursuing privately pretty much the policies it has articulated publicly. Whether on Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan or North Korea, the cables confirm what we know to be U.S. foreign policy. And often this foreign policy is concerned with broader regional security, not narrow American interests. Ambassadors are not caught pushing other countries in order to make deals secretly to strengthen [...]
Aug
20
2010
Hannah Gurman on Iraq, Norman Solomon on Petraeus and Afghanistan
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: One war is ending, while the other is the subject of a major PR blitz. Right on schedule, we're told, Operation Iraqi Freedom is winding down, with live TV coverage relaying the images of the final U.S. combat brigades leaving the country. The caveats to the story of the "end" of the war are abundant—tens of thousands of troops and private contractors remain, and some are already suggesting they'll be there longer than we've been told. So how does a war that isn't really ending actually end? Hannah Gurman wrote about the Orwellian state [...]
Mar
22
2010
NYT Public Editor Admits ACORN Errors
In a response to a FAIR action alert (3/11/10), New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt (3/21/10) acknowledged that the paper got key facts wrong in reporting on the undercover videos attacking the community organizing group ACORN. The main issue was the fact that James O'Keefe, the activist who produced the videos, did not actually dress up like a "pimp" when he visited the offices. This was a major theme in stories that appeared in the Times and elsewhere: As FAIR pointed out, O'Keefe's supposed get-up was one of "the key contentions of the ACORN smear--that the group is so [...]
Feb
01
2010
NPR Puts Right-Wing Hate in Howard Zinn's Obit
A double standard for deaths on left and right
When progressive historian Howard Zinn died on January 27, NPR’s All Things Considered (1/28/10) marked his passing with a declaration that his life’s work was worthless. After quoting positive assessments from Noam Chomsky and Julian Bond, NPR’s Allison Keyes turned to far-right activist David Horowitz, a practitioner of what the Nation (11/12/07) calls the New McCarthyism, for a ritual denunciation. “There is absolutely nothing in Howard Zinn’s intellectual output that is worthy of any kind of respect,” Horowitz proclaimed. “Zinn represents a fringe mentality which has unfortunately seduced millions of people at this point in time. So he did certainly [...]
Jan
29
2010
NPR Finds Right-Wing Crank to Spit on Zinn's Grave
David Horowitz in ATC obituary with substance-free attack
When progressive historian Howard Zinn died on January 27, NPR's All Things Considered (1/28/10) marked his passing with something you don't often see in an obituary: a rebuttal. After quoting Noam Chomsky and Julian Bond, NPR's Allison Keyes turned to far-right activist David Horowitz to symbolically spit on Zinn's grave. "There is absolutely nothing in Howard Zinn's intellectual output that is worthy of any kind of respect," Horowitz declared. "Zinn represents a fringe mentality which has unfortunately seduced millions of people at this point in time. So he did certainly alter the consciousness of millions of younger people for the [...]
Oct
02
2009
Gareth Porter on Iran, Christopher Martin on ACORN
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: This week on CounterSpin, did the White House really disclose the existence of Iran’s new Uranium enrichment plant, and does the plant, as many news stories seem to indicate, really violate the law? And what evidence is there that the new plant may have anything to do with a nuclear weapons program, as certain prominent U.S. media figures have claimed, but which U.S. intelligence agencies say does not exist? We’ll talk to historian and free lance journalists Gareth Porter about the latest wave of allegations against Iran. Also this week: The community activist group [...]
Aug
01
2008
Dubious Debates
How media moderators lowered the level of Election ’08
Given the early start and lengthy run of Election 2008’s presidential primaries, the full slates of candidates in both the Democratic and Republican parties, and voters’ concerns with pressing issues, it is not surprising that the media featured a large number of debates. Roughly 40 were held between April 2007 and May 2008 (depending upon whether so-called “forums” and an interactive “mashup” online debate created by Yahoo! and the Huffington Post are included). The volume at times seemed overwhelming, as in January 2008, when six debates (one called a forum) were held. Despite the potential for voter exhaustion, we might [...]
